The short answer would be to say that Anusara follows a tantric philosophy, and hopefully would be a sufficient answer. But I tend to think it isn't....

How about this: the three A's that make the foundation of Anusara yoga are Attitude, Alignment and Action. They are explained as follows in the Anusara Yoga Teacher Training manual:

"The three A's distinguish yoga from mere exercise or stretching. The main intention of stretching is to increase flexibility and mobility. Stretching often aims at creating maximum sensation, usually in a localized area of the body, whereas yoga, performed with the three A's, has a profound spiritual intention, a high degree of mindfulness, precise alignment, and balanced energetic action. Also, yoga focuses on extending the light of awareness evenly throughout the body."

The three A's themselves are defined as following:

"Attitude - The power of the heart as the force behind every action or expression in an asana; the aspiration to reawaken to our divine nature, and the celebration of life."

"Alignment - The mindful awareness of how various parts of ourselves are integrated and interconnected."

"Action - The natural flow of energy in the body, which provides both stability and joyful freedom."

The manual then goes further to explain quite concisely how all three of these elements work together: "The yogi uses Action to express his Attitude through the Alignment of the body. This is analogous to playing music [jimg, you'll like this] -- a musician (yogi) makes music (performs an asana) by expressing his heart (Attitude) through the playing (Action) of a properly tuned instrument (Alignment of the body)."

So have I answered your question? I'm not sure.... do other styles of yoga talk about literally making the body feel happy? I find I run out of words to help describe it, which is why the style has a reputation for all that flowery language. It's really physical (the alignments quite precise) and equally quite spiritual, and that's the tantric slant to it as I understand it. My experience with YogaFit and other gym yoga classes I've attended were all missing that "innate happiness of the body" element. Hopefully that helps.

Oh, now I don't think I meant to say that Anusara style would make the body MORE innately happy, just that that particular aspect of the practice is emphasized as such. Are there other styles that address this aspect? I don't know; I just know that it "does it" for me, more so than anything else that I've experienced. If Yoga is to be defined as "the science of happiness", then why not just approach it clearly with that end in mind?

One of the statements that resonates so well with me from the Anusara style talks about its strict attention to alignment: within the alignment, we find freedom in the pose. Is this too flowery? I don't think so, but others might. For me, this talks about that happiness thing in the body. For me, this puts emphasis on not only having the proper actions and alignments in any pose, but also the proper attitude. From my first exposure to this style, I was told to go for that feeling as the intention of my poses. Now, I can't imagine practicing (or teaching others to practice) in any other way.